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Show 20 An ESS AT a pi v xvW.cu brought Fletcher and him in efteem was their th?V,°llt- Jlu \1- ev had Written two or three very unfuccefsfully : Philafor . For before that they had W ntten tv ^ ^ ^ ^ Thelfe *f• tldl 1 heir flots were geucicu y p thev under flood and imitated the Con- Wcre ^ S ^ S . teS'i whofe S c d debaucheries, and quicknefi neis to t.cic IDC . i«y t :n t]icm arr v'd to its higheft perfection ; what Woids nave imcc d fr entertainments ot the Stage; two ot tneirs oemaAu.u• * _ cravetv in their Comedies, and Pathos in their ^ f e n ^ ^ ^ K S ^ w i t h all Men's Humour. Shakefpear^ SjSSTS fefc'i M" on^tec^nd ta * * * * Wit comes fhort of ^Asfor 7«* to whofe Character I am now arriv'd , if we look upon him w H f e t w ^ f ^ ( f o r h i s laft Plays were but his Dotages) Ithink imthe moft Learned and judicious Writer which any Theater ever had Hewasarnott fevere Tudge of himfelf as well as others. One cannot fay he w anted U i but ra- S £ frugal of it. In ^^y^Bndl^f^^^^ andDmguage, and Humour alfo in fome meafure,we had betoie him , but lome thfngof Ar?was wanting to the Drama til! he came. He manag d his ftrength to morf advantage than any w h o preceded him. Youfeldom find him making Love nany^o^lfis Scenes o endeavouring to move the Paffions ; his genius was too fol'en and fatnrnine to do it gracefully, efnecia^ whe" h° ^ hC ""If ?" t who had performed both to Inch an Iieigk Humour was his proper Sphere and mthathcPdelighted moftto rep chanickPeople. tevntefr*^ fant in the Ancients, both G , and he borrow'd boldly fiom them. There is fcarce a Poetor Hift( , the R o m a n Authors of thofe fmes,whom he has not tranflated in Sejanus ai U But he has done his Robberies fo o-penly that one may fee lie fears not to be taxed by any Law. H e invades Authors like a Monarch, and what would be theft in other Poets, is only; Viftory m him. With the fpoils of thefe Writers he foreprcfents old Rome to us, in its Rites, Ceremonies and Cuftoms, that ifone of their Poets had Written cither oc his Tragedies, w e had feen lefs of it than in him. If there was any fault mhis Language, 'twas that he weav'd it too clofely and laborioufly in his ferious Plays : Perhaps too, he did a little too much Romanize our Tongue, leaving the Words which he tranflated almoft as much Latin as he found them: Wherein though he learnedly followed the Idiom of their Language, he did not enough comply with ours. It I would compare him with Shakefpear, I muft acknowledge him the more correct Poet, but Shakefpear the greater Wit. Shakefpear was the Homer or Father of our Dramatick Poets; Johnfon was the Virgil, the pattern of Elaborate Writing; I admire him, but I Love Shakefpear. Toconclude of him, as he has given us the moft correct Plays, To in the precepts which he has laid down in his Discoveries w e have a, many and profitable Rules for perfecting the Stage as any wherewith t'1 an furnifh us. . fl. r , Ha us fpoken of the Author, I proceed to the examination oi his Comedy, The Woman. Examen of the Silent Woman. * 'Fo begin firft with the length of the Aftion, it is fo far from exceeding the corn- •al day,that it takes not up an Artificial one. '1 is all included in the limits of three ho an half, which is no more than is requir d for the prefent-rae ige. A Beauty perhaps not much obferv'd : it it had, w e fhould not ha d upon the Spanijb Tranflation of Five Hours with fo much wonder. The Scene of it is laid in London; the latitude of place is almoft as little as you can ne: for it lies all within the compafs of two Houfes, and after the firft Aft, in one. The continuity of Scenes is obferv'd more than in any ot our Plays, excepting hi Fox and Alchymifi. They are not broken above twice or thrice moft in the whole Comedy,' and in the two heft of Corneille's Plays the Cid and e interrupted once apiece. T h e Aftion of the Play is intirelyone; the end or a m of it is t! t ewfhti acnh di sm othfet f neotbllien go Mfo arnoyfe p su\r eE ftuantmei oxn' dD aCuopmhmeed.y iTn haney I LnatrnigguYuaoeg uoe f : of Dramatic!^ Poefie. 21 you fee in it many Perfons of various Characters and Humours, and all delightful : As firft Morofe, or an old M a n , to w h o m all noife but his o w n talking is of-fenfive. Some w h o would be thought Criticks, fay this Humour of his is fore'd : But to remove that Obieaion, w e m a y confider him firft to be naturally of a delicate hearing as many are to w h o m all (harp founds are unpleafant; and fecondly, w e may attribute much of it to the peevifhnefs of his Age, or the wayward Authority of an old M a n in his o w n Houfe, where he m a y make himfelf obeyed ; and this the Poet feems to allude to in his name Morofe. Befides this , I a m affur'd from diverfe Perfons, that Ben. Johnfon was actually acquainted with fuch a M a n, one altogether as ridiculous as he is here reprefented. Others fay it is not enough to find one M a n of fuch an Humour; it muft be common to more, and the more common the more natural. To prove this, they inftance in the belt of Comical Charafters, Falflaff: There are many M e n refembling him; Old, Fat, Merry, Cowardly, Drunken, Amorous, Vain, and Lying: But to convince thefe People, I need but tell them, that Humour is the ridiculous extravagance of Conversation, wherein one M a n differs from all others. If then it be common, or communicated to many, how differs it from other Mens ? O r what indeed caufes it to be ridiculous fo much as the fingularity of it? Asfor Falflaff, he is not properly one Humour, but aMifcellany of Humours or Images, drawn from fo many feve-ral M e n ; that wherein he is lingular in his Wit, or thofe things he fays, pr&ter ex-peclatum, unexpefted by the Audience; his quick evafions when you imagine him furpriz'd, which as they are extremely diverting of themfelves, fo receive a great addition from his Perfon ; for the very fight of fuch an unwie!dy,old,debauch'd fellow is a Comedy alone. And here having a placefo proper for it I cannot but enlarge fomewhat upon this fubjea of humour into which I a m fallen. The Ancients had little of it in their Comedies, forth.- TO yehoiov ofthe old Comedy, of which Arijlophanes was chief, was not fo much to imitate a Man, as to make the People laugh at fome odd Conceit, which had commonly fomewhat of unnatural or obfeene in it. Thus when you fee Socrates brought upon tiie Stage, you are not to imagine him made ridiculous by the imitation of his Aaions, but rather by making him perform fomething very unlike himfelf: Something fo childifh and ab-furd, as by comparing it with the gravity of the true Socrates, makes a ridiculous objea for theSpeaators. In their new Comedy which fucceeded, the Poets fought indeed to exprefs the *8©«, as in their Tragedies the T « 9 § * of Mankind. But this $)©. contain'd only the general Charaaers of M e n and Manners; asoldMen, Lovers, Serving-Men, Courtizans, Parafites, and fuch other Perfons as w e fee in their Comedies; all which they made alike: That is, one old M a n or Father; one Lover, one Courtizan fo like another, as if the firft of them had begot the reft of e-very fort: Ex homine hunc natum dicas. The fame Cuftom they obferv'd likewife in their Tragedies. As for the French, though they have the word humetir among them, yet they have final! ufe of it in their Comedies, or Farces* they being but ill imitations of tht ridiculum, or that which ftir'd up Laughter in the old Comedy. Butamong the Englifh 'tis otherw ife : Where by humour is meant fome extravagant Habit, Paffion, orAffeaion; particular (as I find before) to fome one Perfon : B y the oddnefs of which, he is immediately diftinguifh'd from the reft of ofMen ; which being lively and naturally reprefented, moft frequently begets that malicious pleafure in the Audience which is teftified by laughter: as all things which are deviations from common Cuftoms are ever the apteft to produce it: Though by the w a y this laughter is only accidental, as the Perfon reprefented is Fantaftick or Bizarre, but pleafure iseffential to it, as the imitation of what is natural. The defcription of thefe Humours, drawn from the knowledge and Obfer-vation of particular Perfons, was the peculiar genius and talent of Ben. Johnfon ; T o whofe Play I n o w return. Befides Morofe, there are at leaft 9 or 10 different Charaaers and Humours in the Silent Women,,all which Perfons have feveral concernments of their own, yet are all us'd by the Poet, to the conducting ofthe main defign to perfeftion. I fhall not waft time in commending the Writing of this Play, but I will give you m y Opinion, that there is more Wit and acutenefs of Fancy in it than in any of Ben.Johnfon's. Befides, that he has here defcrib'd the converfation of Gentlemen in the Perfons of True-Wit, and his Friends, with more gayety, Air and Freedom, than in the reft of his Comedies. For the contrivance of the Plot 'tis extreme metilhfaasbt'o wdr ahittee;n, aiantn did sy y edetot n iweti* wt hanasol ceooannfciee a ol;f' tdfh fore otAhu medu Mifeetnn bc eefo orwr oueun tlthdye itn lhgai fnotkf S ictte,hne e' P,tio steh fta otc aoadunlmydi rowahtabahlyvee er, |